Modern Vernacular: Asian American Architects and the Built Environment of Postwar Northern California

Drawing on the collection of the Environmental Design Archives, this exhibition highlights the often overlooked contributions of Asian American architects to the development of architectural modernism in postwar Northern California. It features works of six designers: architects Kinji Imada (1927–2005), Roger Yuen Lee (1920–1981), Terry Tong (1921–2016), and Worley Wong (1912–1985) and landscape architects Mai Kitazawa Arbegast (1922–2012) and Casey Kawamoto (1919–2010). All except Imada earned their design degrees from UC Berkeley.

The exhibition explores how these designers incorporated the language of California regionalism in the mid-20th century in their professional practices, developing new yet familiar architectural and landscape expressions that we still encounter today. More than a survey of their professional achievements, this exhibition aims to contextualize their design practices within the highly racialized history of the Asian American experience in the mid-20th century by interweaving their professional drawings with personal documents, ranging from encampment photos and family portraits to diaries and personal correspondence.

Symposium

Between History and Design, a symposium related to the exhibition, will be held on the afternoon of October 10. It will dive into the socio-spatial history of Asian American communities and designers, exploring the intertwined relationship between Asian American identities and the built environment in their many constitutive affinities and historical multitudes.